Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2023 ii Paper 1 36A b iii Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-25
Ifthen is large and the wall correction is exponentially small:This is exactly the equipartition theorem result from the two kinetic and two harmonic-potential quadratic terms.
If , useThenThe leading term is the kinetic energy. The particle is nearly uniform in the disk, so and , much smaller than . The hard wall therefore suppresses the positional equipartition contribution, as in the hard-wall correction to harmonic equipartition.